Egyptian clothing styles did not change much throughout ancient times. Clothes were usually made of linens ranging from coarse to fine texture. Men usually wore a short skirt called a kilt. Women wore a straight fitting dress held up by straps. The wealthy men wore pleated kilts, and the older men wore a longer kilt. When doing hard work, men wore a loin cloth, and women wore a short skirt.
Children usually ran around nude during the summer months, while in the winter, wraps and cloaks were worn. Noble women sometimes wore beaded dresses. Noblemen would sometimes wear a long robe over his kilt, while the women wore long pleated dresses with a shawl. Some kings and queens wore decorative ceremonial clothing with feathers and sequins. Very little sewing was done as most of the cloth was wrapped and secured with strings or belts.
Women covered their breasts most of the time, though there were some periods when fashion left them bare. Circular capes were sometimes worn. They were generally made of linen and had an opening for the head cut at the center. These capes were often dyed, painted or otherwise decorated and covered little more than the shoulders. Shawls were sometimes worn during the later years.
Most people went barefoot, but wore sandals on special occasions. The king wore very elaborately decorated sandals, and sometimes decorative gloves on his hands (some of the gloves had fine linen linings, while others would have separate index and middle fingers and a hole for the thumb.) Clothing styles were chosen for comfort in the hot, dry climate of Egypt.
The wealthy men and women wore long see-through robes that were pleated. Better-off people wore wide clothes of white cloth. Wealthy people did not wear more jewelry or fancier clothes to show wealth. They did wear gold jewelry and the most transparent clothes. The Egyptians were not embarrassed about their bodies,
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